Consumers purchase various items, goods and services such as groceries and other consumables such as cereal, meat, milk and baby formula, toiletries, personal hygiene supplies such as toothpaste, floss, mouthwash, etc. These items may be consumed and purchased weekly, every other week, once a month, and at other times depending on the quantity of items purchased each time and how quickly they are consumed. The rate at which items are consumed and how often they must be purchased again may be affected by various factors such as the number of people in a consumer's family, consumer preferences and circumstances. These factors may change over time as people join a family, preferences and consumption change, and new products become available.
Given the nature of consumable items, they are used or needed at different rates and at different times. Consumers may or may not know how much of a particular item remains and whether they need to purchase the item again. Consumers often purchase different items from different stores for various reasons including item availability and selection, merchant loyalty, location and convenience, and prices charged by different merchants.
For example, a consumer may purchase certain food items from a traditional grocery store such as SAFEWAY, certain food items from a specialty, bulk or farmers-market style grocery store such as WHOLE FOODS, certain items, such as bulk consumables, from a warehouse club store such as COSTCO, and other items from big box or superstore such as TARGET. Further, consumers may purchase certain items on-line from AMAZON or a merchant website.
In order to assess their needs, consumers may survey their needs by looking in their pantry, refrigerator, bathrooms, etc. to determine which items need to be purchased or replaced, and then make a shopping list in the form of a written note on a piece of paper or on a POST-IT note, which the consumer takes when shopping to remind the consumer which items to purchase. These types of shopping lists may not be updated with other items that are identified by the consumer at a later time.
Thus, consumers may forget their shopping lists or utilize an incomplete shopping list such that they do not know or forget which items are necessary, thereby resulting in the consumer forgoing such items until the next shopping trip, requiring the consumer to go out again to one or more stores to purchase forgotten items, purchase items from another merchant with less desirable item selection, failing to take advantage of opportunities to make purchases towards a rewards or points program offered by a particular merchant, and/or paying or travelling more as a result of purchasing an item from a different merchant rather than from the merchant at which the consumer normally shops. These inconveniences and financial and time losses are due, in part, to consumers relying on their memories and ad-hoc shopping lists.
Shopping for needed items is further complicated by the fact that consumers are at various places at various times, e.g., at home, school, work, etc., and consumer schedules may differ from day to day and from location to location. Consumers may, for example, have free time during a weekend, but utilize that time for other tasks or sometimes unproductive matters. As a result, it is not uncommon for consumers to underutilize their available time at a certain location or simply spend that time in an inefficient manner or on unproductive activities.